


Leaving the Stage.

by BarPurple



Series: Moving On [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:15:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8274230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: He’d been a part of this story for three hundred years, but now the time had come to leave this stage.





	

Rumple took a moment to look around the shop. It wasn’t nostalgia, there were very few happy memories for him in this place, and those that had been happy were now nothing but dust. No, he took this final moment to ensure he’d not overlooked anything. 

Three piles of paperwork sat on the glass topped counter.

The first was a thick folder containing the property deeds for two thirds of Storybrooke, (claims that he’d own the whole town weren’t that far from the truth), along with the legal document that transferred ownership to his unborn child, all to be held in trust until they came of age. Belle would be able to draw large monthly allowance from the funds and the pink house and its contents, (apart from the small suitcase of necessities currently packed in the trunk of the caddy), was hers out right. The paperwork was watertight and would hold up in any court in this land. The legality of the contracts dissolving the unfulfilled deals was a little shakier in this realm, but the magic was sound; there now wasn’t a single soul in his debt.

The second was a letter that gave the magical contents of the shop jointly to Regina and Emma. He filled a ledger with the history of each item and detailed instructions for proper storage and use; he wasn’t sure either woman would pay any attention, but they were the best people in town to take control of the powerful artefacts.

The third and smallest pile was made up of two simple envelopes. The bottom one held his wedding ring and divorce papers that would be legal once Belle signed and filed them. The topmost envelope held his attention, it was the only real reason he was lingering here. He stared at it for a very long time, wondering why he felt so numb looking at the name written in his own hand on the thick cream paper, except it wasn’t a name was it? Just the salutation ‘For My Child’ Belle had refused to tell him what she planned to call the babe. His second born would probably never read the letter held in that envelope, but he left it on the counter anyway just in case; that it would one day find its way into the hands of his child was the final hope he had in the life he was leaving behind.

He turned on his heel and walked away from the counter without looking back, but he did pause by the door and pick up the gold handled cane, that needed to come with him, but the Dagger held loosely in his hand did not. A slight smile quirked his lips as he drove the blade into the wood of the door frame, a last dramatic gesture for Rumplestiltskin. 

Mister Gold walked out of the shop carefully closing the door behind him, and got into his caddy. He drove steadily out of Storybrooke, and stopped for a moment at the town line. He had no imported magic with him; once he crossed there would be no coming back, his cell phone was on the workbench in the backroom of the shop; he’d taken steps to ensure he couldn’t be summoned with the Dagger, he doubted that anyone would even try to track him down. His eyes drifted to the sign at the side of the road; 

_Leaving Storybrooke_

“Yes, yes I am.”

He fixed his eyes on the road ahead and drove over the town line without so much as a glance in the rear view mirror.


End file.
